Some 17 per cent of the operator's current broadband base is considering leaving it "at the next available opportunity", "a far higher proportion than anyone else," said Imran Choudhary, consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel.

However, the biz was successful in attracting more customers across its range of broadband, fixed landline and paid television for the quarter. Its overall share of the "triple-play" home services market increased by 3.2 percentage points, to a 12.2 per cent slice of the market.

That indicates the operator has made some progress towards rebuilding trust after the mega hack last year, which saw the personal details of more than 156,000 people being accessed by hackers and the company estimating £60m write-off in relation to the incident.

Choudhary said: "Increased value propositions and heavy promotional activity have led to a robust performance in the first quarter of this year. Reassurances on data security, including plans for voice recognition software use, mean consumers are willing to give the provider another chance."

"Over 40 per cent of its new customers said they chose TalkTalk due to its low cost or a promotion on offer – well above the market average of 30 per cent."

However, he said the company still has a lot of work to do to please existing customers.

Meanwhile, BT remained the dominant service provider, increasing its percentage points of customer by 2.9 to 31.5 per cent. Sky came in second place, losing five percentage points with an overall market share of 23.3 per cent.

Choudhary said: “If current trends in the paid TV sector continue we could see BT usurp Sky with the largest market share in new customers by the second quarter – a first for the operator."

He added that despite being one of the most expensive providers in the broadband market, Virgin Media is ranked second in terms of providing value, following Plusnet again. ®